First Impressions – Magus

September 7, 2008

Ever since I started doing the Chaos zones, I’ve looked on with envy at all the Magus players out there.They’re floating along on discs, summoning up little care bears or whatever they are, and here I am plodding along on two useless feet, summoning up a weak will to live.Finally… finally it was going to be my turn.

My turn… for HOVERBOARD!

You may not understand my sheer love of all things hoverboard, and that’s okay – you barely know me at this point.Let it suffice to say that the hoverboard from Back to the Future II/III is one of my all-time favorite movie inventions (even though Marty’s was pink… or especially since it was pink), and the Magus is probably the closest I’ll ever get in my lifetime to using one.

So there I am, Snafzg the Magus (I’m in ur name stealing ur identity!), feet eternally plunked on top of a demonic disc that doesn’t fit through bathroom doorways SO WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO DO WHEN I GOTS TO GO NUMBER TWO?Is there a Tome entry that explains this?I confused.I also bet that Maguses get stick helping friends move: “C’mon, man, you have an anti-gravity disc, and we have this heavy couch!”At least you can do lip tricks and show up Tony Hawk with all your mad 180s or whatever.

The Magus’ starting skills include a red fluffy ball of what I presume to be love and hugs, and a giant weedwhacker plastic tail that lashes around the disc.Great for when you want to trim lawns.So I went and weedwhacked a few bad guys down, but on occasion I’d end up with that weird bug I’ve heard about during the preview weekend where I’d throw the red fluffy ball, it’d hit a guy, and then he’d immediately Monty Python it: “Run away! Run away!”I’m not quite used to having to chase down a guy with almost full health, so I didn’t.If he didn’t want to stick around to die, I wasn’t going to give him the honor of being killed by the great and mighty Snafzg.

I marched through all of the chapter one quests, which quickly become an overwhelming assortment of To Do’s.Seriously, for those interested in PvE-only gameplay, WAR looks like it’s going to have more than enough for you to do, between the quests, Tome, PQs and dungeons.I ground a bit on the local Gors (Gars? I dunno) for drops to sell for cash – got to get the skills, don’t you know. Eventually I hit level 4 and got my very own summon, a Pink Horror.

I’m not sure who came up with the names for the Magus’ summons, either GW or Mythic, but “Pink Horror” and“Blue Horror” seem lacking somewhat in the name department.I’d rather be summoning “Phil” and “Larry”, two congenial demons on a coffeebreak from torturing all of the Bright Wizards that have killed me in scenarios and earned a special place in the underworld because of it.The Pink Horror – he is quite pink, with three arms and a huge lolling tongue – spits joy and goodwill in the form of a painful deathball across the battlefield.They take a few seconds to summon, which isn’t the best thing to do in the middle of combat, so you have to plan a bit ahead.Like the Engineer, the Magus is more of a defensive dps’er, so laying down a fire-and-forget Horror (which can’t move, like the turrets) is a good idea on the PvP battlefield.

Pinkie and me jumped into the local PQ, which was, on Preview Weekend, absolutely swarming with players. After the relative calm of closed beta, to suddenly throw wide open the doors to thousands of brand-new players gave the feeling of sitting in your favorite coffeeshop, only to have the door slam open and an entire convention of Texas gun show nuts storm in, demanding to see the action.

So I kind of felt for the poor demon that was summoned at the end of the PQ, who, in his 5,000th repeat performance for the weekend, knew that he was going to pop out of the earth, toddle over a few steps to start attacking, and promptly be ganked by 200 players all trying to spam their attacks to get contribution points in.I wanted to fall to my knees (on my disc) and scream “Leave him ALONE!”, but then I got bored and wandered off.Well, not before a fluke roll put me at the number 1 spot for the PQ and I snagged some green booties.

I was going to do more Magus-y fun, but the other Snafzg logged on and called me over to the Dark Elf zone to run two characters together.So long, hoverboard!I might very well be returning to you in the near future!

Quick Notes:

I’ve spied some NPCs and characters who have a red exclamation mark (!) over their heads.What is this, I wondered.Snafzg (the Canadian version) told me that when you see it over a player’s head, it means they’re being taunted, and their dps will be cut down unless they attack the tank a few times.I’m not sure if it’s the same for the NPC mobs, though.

Oddly enough at this stage of the beta, I picked up a piece of loot that had no icon.I knew this, because instead of the icon was a box saying “NO ICON”.

Is there a way to queue up for scenarios of other racial pairings?For example, if you’re in the elf area and you want to run the dwarf-greenskin scenario?I haven’t figured out a way yet, unless you actually fly to that zone.I was thinking the scenario screen would offer a selection of level-appropriate fights, but it currently seems limited to just one, whatever that zone supports.

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5 comments

The magus is one of the classes that might have balance issues. They appear to have no defense whatsoever once people are on them. They just sort of flop around and die. And their dps… well, I haven’t seen anythin impressive.

Maybe engineers are the same way, but so far this is one class we’ve been picking out to burn simply because they are easy to take out and are unlikely to have a tank willing to protect them.

You can join another pairing’s Scenarios if you get into a group with someone in that area and have them join the queue as a group. When they get into the Scenario, you should too. You will return right where you started when you’re done.

It’s a dumb piece of design, especially with the new Tome unlocks to visit different pairings’ Scenarios.

Here’s what we are doing with scenarios as a guild group. We have at least one person in each racial area, and then at least one queues up for that scenario, as a group. These gives you not only guild group play, which is so much better, but a chance at any of the scenario’s. It’s a blast.

Even with the improvements, Magus is still this game’s red-headed stepchild class. One can only hope that some future post-launch patch buffs them further. As for Pink Horror and Blue Horror, that is not Mythic’s fault, since that is what they are actually called on the tabletop.

WAAAGH! is a Warhammer Online blog written by Syp, a casual-hardcore player, and is dedicated to chewing the fat about WAR's various features, the culture, the news and how Orcs can eat with such a pronounced underbite.